The feminine in management consulting
Subtitle: power, emotion, and values in consulting interactions
By: Sheila Marsh.
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2008
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9780230207165
Subjects: Women consultants; Business consultants
First sentence: A notorious ‘amusing’ anecdote about management consultants concerns a dead horse and how many stupid, worthless, desperate and absurd approaches to tackling it (including of course flogging it) the consultant formulates, while ignoring the immutable fact that the horse is indeed already dead.  This story, and others similar, which circulate unchallenged and are endlessly re-told (readers will undoubtedly have their own examples) are part of the complex and ambiguous process whereby the consultant achieves her identity or sense of self and forges her sense of worth or value.
Description: Through ‘live’ material from consulting practice and an historical review of advice-giving to pre-modern leaders, this book uncovers a distinctive ‘feminine’ discourse of management consulting that challenges current (masculine) images of management consulting.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: PART I: CONSULTING: EXPLORING THE TERRAIN: Consultants, Confidantes and Consorts: A Genealogy of Consulting and Advice-giving to Organizational Leaders; Images of Consulting: What Currently shapes How We See Consulting and How it Works?; Consulting as a Discursive Practice. PART II: DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF CONSULTING INTERACTIONS: Researching Consulting Interactions: From Process Ontology to Critical Discourse Analysis; Women Consultants in Action: Critical Discourse Analysis of ‘Live’ Consulting Interaction; Women’s Stories about Consulting: Critical Discourse Analysis of Reflective Material; title: PART III: MAKING SENSE: What is Going on in Consulting Interactions?: Exploring Meta-themes of Power, Emotion and Values; Femininities and Consulting: (Re-)animating a ‘Feminine’ Discourse of Consulting; Towards a ‘Critical Consulting’ Practice: The Contribution of a ‘Feminine’ Discourse of Consulting